Bridge Over Black Water
by ImpalaLove
Summary: Written for Otorisosa-kan's August "First Sentence Exchange Prompt Challenge." Story must begin with the words: "From this moment you will never be alone." Choose your own brother story. No spoilers. Set anytime after season 3 or 5 depending on which brother you think it's about.


**Written for Otorisosa-kan's August Prompt Challenge. For this month, we were each given quotes/random sentences that had to be the first sentence of our story. Mine was:** **"From this moment you will never be alone."**

 **This is also a "choose your own brother" story. No spoilers. Could occur anytime after season 3 or 5, depending on which brother you picture.**

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Bridge over Black Water

From this moment you will never be alone. All your breaths, your blinks, your strides, will be shared with someone else. Every step away from home is a deliberate undoing, a slow march into oblivion.

It doesn't scare you as much as you think it should, but maybe that's because you don't have to take those steps without hearing the echo of the one who walks with you. He is quiet, this shadow of yours, but you hear him because you are listening and because no one else dares journey this far. The silence is peaceful, only the sound of his footfalls that are also your own; a perfect synchronization of footprints that aren't quite harsh enough to fully pierce the thin veil of night air that filters out from the street below your shoes. It rises up from the pavement like a thick, invisible fog, clinging to the shirt on your back and leaving a sticky aftertaste on the surface of your skin. You know someone who would say that you are imagining the way long fingers slide across your shoulder blades and tickle at the back of your neck, but whoever it is isn't here right now, and the scratching whisper in your ear insists otherwise.

You walk for a long time trying to ignore that voice, though you are secretly grateful there is someone else in your head to distract from your own incessant murmurs. Being alone with your own thoughts has always been its own kind of Hell, though not as horrific as the real thing. There are few things as agonizing as that, but you can think of a few that come close. Tells you what kind of life you've lived. You sense the one who walks with you smiling sadly in agreement. He urges you to walk faster, to leave everything behind.

"Close now," the voice says, "we're getting close."

You nod, rounding the next street corner and lifting your head to watch the streetlamp flicker above you. There are several more on this stretch of road, and they all die out for a moment as you walk beneath them, a cool breeze tickling at your throat. You cough a thin cloud of frosty air and ignore the loud sign outside the restaurant on your right that offers a free appetizer with an order of two or more entrees. You've made enough deals for a lifetime, you think, and they've always come back to bite you in the ass. Besides, the voice is louder now, more insistent.

"No time," it hisses. "Almost there."

You take another turn and slow your stride, shuffling quietly forward, body tensing in the practiced way you were taught only a few years after you could walk; a low crouch that leaves little room for error or miscalculation (you've never been able to afford any).

She stands in the middle of the bridge looking out at the water, turned black against the night and reflecting the glow of a few of the brighter stars that have made an appearance above your head. She looks to you like one of those stars, but perhaps from Hollywood's Golden Age, the skirt of her dress billowing out against her long legs, just tickling the backs of her knees. You move closer, calculating the distance between you, noticing the way her blonde hair falls in thick ringlets that stop just above her shoulders. She shivers delicately as you approach, leaning forward so that her arms rest along the railing that separates her from the plummet into the river below her.

"She's here!" the voice exclaims, excitement coloring its tone. "She's here and she's waiting. Waiting for me."

"Now what?" you breathe, barely a whisper to your own ears.

"We must join her. We must tell her everything," the shadow voice whispers back, urging you closer until you are standing beside the woman with the lovely curls and the long, gray dress. She looks at you, and her smile is the soft flutter of a flower's petals unfurling after a long winter; oxygen after too long underwater. You breathe it in, breathe _her_ in, reaching a tentative hand out to stroke the soft, pale skin of her cheek. She leans into the touch and steals your hand from her face, clasping it between her own.

"You kept me waiting so long," she says, soft and almost unaccusing.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

The voice in your head sounds different when it is filtered through your own lips, but the woman in gray just smiles sadly and shakes her head.

"I'm here now though," you say. "And I promise you, I will never let you go again."

Part of you wonders at these words and the reason you are saying them, the reason you were so desperate to find this woman in the first place. Part of you screams that you should turn around and run in the opposite direction, back the way you've come. Back to someone else. Someone more important. You were thinking about him earlier, maybe, wondering what he'd say to this voice inside your head; this body that floats just beneath your own skin, scraping along your bones…

"I love you," the gray woman murmurs, pulling you away from...something...something you thought you should remember. She still holds your hand, and she squeezes it now, guiding you up to the edge of the bridge where the water rushes below.

"Come with me."

She giggles like a child and slips off her shoes one by one, letting go of you so that she can swing her pale legs over the railing and land lightly on the other side. You follow after, almost wondering what happens next, but mostly just trying to stay close to her, wanting to feel her near, sharing this strange, cold heat. The two of you stand with your backs to the bridge, looking out over the dark water, watching the slow way it moves, always moves.

"Steady like a heartbeat," she says. "Like the way we should be."

You think you agree, so you nod. But there is something wrong and you are getting colder, getting worried. Ice spreads from your fingertips and touches every breath you take, and somewhere in the back of your brain you remember it is April, almost May, and nothing should feel so cold, especially not her hand on your sleeve, pulling you closer.

The gray woman with the piercing eyes holds your gaze, and this time she does not smile.

"Are you ready?" she asks. "You've kept me waiting so long."

You don't know. You don't know if you are ready. You stare back at her, and then down at the rushing river below you, and there is a voice inside your head again, but this one is different. And it is screaming at you.

 _Wait_ , it screams, pulsing along the lining of your skull.

 _Wait. Someone is coming. He told you he'd fix it. He told you not to go. Don't go. Don't go. Don't go._

The woman with the soft, blonde curls and the long, gray dress is waiting for an answer, her body swaying back and forth over the water, holding you with her eyes and her fingers on your sleeve that are so cold, so cold.

"I...I can't. I can't go."

You choke out the words and they are your own, entirely your own. You know this, because the moment you say them, the voice inside your head shrieks in opposition, the rough particles of its almost-form slamming against the walls of your mind, your lips, your limbs-urging them to shift, move, fall.

And then it is the gray woman who shrieks, her screams devouring the night sky and spitting it back out as bright, orange flames that leap out from her lips and her ankles, clawing their way up; consuming. The hand that grasps your shirt is the last of her to burn, sparks flying from her fingertips as she topples from the bridge, a burning pillar of fire that disappears before it even hits the water.

You wrap your frozen fingers around the railing behind you, trying to stay balanced on the wrong side of this bridge, even as the shadow voice screams with your lips, screams the woman's name long after she is gone.

Valerie. Her name was Valerie.

Tears are streaming down your face and you cannot tell if they are your own this time, but either way, you can feel the crippling weight of loss and you crumble beneath it, letting your knees hit the cold metal of the bridge's overhang, fingers still curled around the steady pillars that are saving you from following after Valerie. The voice wants you to let go, but you have control back, finally, and you ignore the wailing as best you can.

It changes a few seconds later, becomes a scream more like Valerie's, and you understand why because you can feel the fire now coursing through your own bones, igniting everything with a blinding heat that should shatter you completely.

And then the pain stops. And you are alone again.

It takes a few moments for you to find the strength to stand, a few more to swing your legs back over the railing. And the moment you do, you collapse against it again, your back to the water and the fall that would've killed you. You're not sure how long you sit there before he comes, but he runs to you like you are the last safe thing in the world and he smells like smoke and worry.

"Thank god," he breathes, kneeling in front of you and pulling you into him. You let yourself collapse a little in his arms, trying to push away the grief that isn't yours but still somehow feels real, as if the last of all light died when Valerie Sallows dropped from that bridge. Your brother will tell you her full name later, on the drive back to the motel. He will explain that the ghost that had been possessing people in the town of Follansbee, West Virginia was Valerie's husband Damian Sallows, endlessly searching for his long-lost love and hoping to be with her again, no matter what that meant. Turns out Valerie felt the same way, her own spirit lingering in the last place the couple had seen each other alive. You picked up on most of this, what with having Damian possess you, but he will fill in all the blanks, explain his blind panic at waking up without you in the bed beside him, of finding the right bones to burn- two sets. He will tell you later.

Now, he huffs out a shaky breath that drips with exhaustion and relief and a few things neither of you need to say aloud.

"Come on," he says, pulling you to your feet. His grip on your arm radiates heat; warmth. You smile with half your mouth, clapping a hand on your brother's shoulder as you walk away from the bridge and away from the cold rush of the river below.

"Thanks," you say, pushing into him as you walk, letting his presence replace the last of that haunted chill.

From this moment, you will never be alone. All your breaths, your blinks, your strides, will be shared with someone else. Except this time, it is not a slow, drowning march to oblivion.

This time, you are already home.

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 **Drop a comment and let me know which brother you pictured, or any other thoughts you might have. Thanks for reading!**


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